Friday, June 3, 2011

Michaela Noelle Designs- Designer Secrets!

I'm an interior design major at Seattle Pacific University and my passion and joy is to serve others through design.

Can I just say how thrilled I am to be here?! Shelli and I became quick blog friends and have since bonded over all things beautiful. I just have to publicly confess my love for her daughter's sweet nursery!

Today I'm here sharing secrets from a designer. Since I couldn't choose just one design tip, I'm going to unpack my top three for arriving at your dream room. Shall we?

One: Find your Inspiration Piece First

In order to achieve the room you love, my most important tip is starting with a piece you love. Too often people will paint their walls and THEN start searching for the furniture, textiles, and accessories. They run into problems when they realize their favorite couch doesn't match their wall color. For this reason, choose a couch, pillow, bedding, or piece of art you want to be your "inspiration piece" and choose your wall colors and other pieces in the room from that piece.

This room was clearly designed around the curtains:

Two: Space Plan

A smartly arranged room makes all the difference. Here are three things to consider:

1. Pushing your furniture against walls to make the space look larger is a total myth (: {unless that really is your only option.} Besides, it gives the room more personality if the furniture is angled or out in the room.

2. To create a sense of unity in the room, create conversation areas with groupings of chairs, the use of an area rug, or things of that nature.

3. Highlight the best features. Turn the furniture to accentuate a fireplace, beautiful window, or your inspiration piece!

Here are some rooms with pleasing layouts:

Three: Dress it Up with Things You Love

Less is more, friends! Filling your room just to fill your room is the fastest way to end with a cluttered mess. Once you arrive at your style, only buy things that fit your style and that you are truly in love with. Then, start styling book cases, floating shelves, media cabinets, dressers, gallery walls and the like.

Hopefully these tips will help you in designing your next space! Thanks so much for having me, Shelli!

xoxo,

A HUGE Thank you to Michaela for sharing her top three secrets for us! She is, after all, a fabulous designer and blogger and I'm so proud to call her a new friend! Isn't the blog world awesome? Pop over to her blog for more!

oh my gosh! First of all, I LOVE all of her pictures! Second, I LOVE her tips! When we bought our house, we had to pick wall colors right away because the house was soooo beat up and destroyed! We didn't do the "inspiration piece method" and now we've totally been facing the challenge of picking pieces that go with the paint. Eek! Definitely a process, but it's fun!